Intermediate homes for London
What is intermediate housing
The Mayor’s priority is to build more social rented homes. However, the Mayor also wants to support middle-income Londoners who struggle to afford private rents or market sale homes to access safe and secure homes that they can afford, with intermediate housing
There are various types of intermediate housing available in London, but they fall into two broad categories:
- affordable home ownership to support households to purchase their own home
- intermediate rent to support those who struggle to afford private rents.
The Mayor’s Homes for Londoners Portal advertises these types of intermediate homes.
Funding is available to the Mayor, for the delivery of affordable homes, provided by the government through Affordable Homes Programmes. The Mayor is currently administering the Homes for Londoners Affordable Homes Programme 2021–2026 and the London Social and Affordable Homes Programme 2026–2036.
The main types of intermediate homes the Mayor has supported through his funding programmes and planning policy have been Shared Ownership and London Living Rent.
Key Worker Living Rent Homes
In his 2024 election manifesto, the Mayor promised to create a new type of intermediate housing with rents capped and linked to key workers’ incomes. He set an ambition for the first phase of this initiative to see 6,000 being built across the city – in areas where they are needed most.
The Mayor consulted, with the housing sector and with Londoners, on his plans for these homes in late 2024 and early 2025. He confirmed his plans for Key Worker Living Rent homes in January 2026 and encourages developers to build and local authorities to give planning permission for these.
Prioritising key workers for intermediate housing
The Mayor is committed to ensuring that intermediate housing in London meets the housing needs of Londoners in jobs that are essential to the services that Londoners rely on, who’re unlikely to secure social housing.
Following a consultation in 2020 on how to achieve this, the Mayor published a definition of key workers for the purposes of allocating intermediate homes (PDF).
He encourages local authorities and housing providers to reference and incorporate the GLA’s definition - for example through planning agreements that specify who will be prioritised for intermediate homes and when allocating those homes. He issued a Planning Practice Note to highlight this in March 2024.
In all cases, the GLA expects local authorities and housing providers to adopt an equitable and targeted allocation process for all intermediate housing, having regard to regional and local eligibility criteria, and the established definitions of housing need.
Intermediate housing consultation, 2020
Informed by analysis of available evidence (Housing Research Note (PDF)), in 2020, the Mayor consulted on a broad range of proposals in relation to intermediate homes.
Respondents were invited to respond directly to the questions set out within the consultation document (PDF). Londoners were also encouraged to complete a survey on Talk London, an online community where people can have their say on questions asked in this consultation. Read summary of the Talk London discussion.
Following the consultation, we summarised the responses received and set out the GLA’s policy response.
The Part 1 Consultation Response Report (PDF) was published in November 2020 and focuses on consultation questions which relate directly to the Affordable Homes Programme 2021 to 2026.
The Part 2 Consultation Response Report (PDF) was published in March 2021 and analyses the feedback received in relation to the other questions within the consultation, including questions on intermediate housing allocations and key workers. These policy responses are published alongside an Equality Impact Assessment (PDF).
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